The European Union Police Agency (Europol) said it arrested five senior executives from the sanctioned Bitzlato exchange.
The EU agency said January 23 that those arrested include the CEO, CFO and Marketing Director in Spain.
The arrest was made following eight house searches in Spain, Cyprus, Portugal and the United States.
During the raid, Europol said it seized around 18 million euros ($19.5 million) worth of cryptocurrency and froze more than 100 crypto accounts holding assets worth around 50 million. euros ($54.3 million).
Europol added that Bitzlato facilitated the laundering of various crypto-assets, including 119 Bitcoins worth €2.1 billion.
Further analysis by Europol found that around 46% of assets traded through Bitzlato, worth around €1 billion ($1.08 billion), were linked to criminal activity.
On January 18, Bitzlato founder Anatoly Legkodymov was arrested by US authorities for running a money transfer business. Additionally, major crypto exchange Binance has been named among the top three recipients of illegal funds from Bitzlato.
